New Smarter Balanced Desmos Calculators Are Free and Accessible to Students

Smarter Balanced prides itself on innovation and accessibility. All students should have the ability to show what they know and can do on the highest quality assessment system in the nation.

Smarter Balanced and Desmos are proud to provide calculators that are free to students and include cutting-edge accessibility features. Students who are visually impaired or blind now have the same opportunities as their peers to use the online calculator.

Improvements to the calculator for the 2017-18 school year include:

graphs that are accessible to students who are blind,

colors that have sufficient contrast, and

adjustable font-size settings for students with low vision.

Students who are blind can determine the shape of a graph through audio trace. The pitch of the tone increases or decreases depending on the shape of the wave or graph.

Additionally, students can better track their location within a math expression (e.g., numerator or denominator, superscript or subscript, baseline, etc.) as the calculator’s equation editor now communicates with screen readers. The screen readers will voice equations in a verbally intuitive manner.

The Smarter Balanced Desmos calculator software is also compliant with Web accessibility standards, ensuring that people with disabilities are able to use the calculators.

Learn more about the Smarter Balanced Desmos calculator, including how to configure the screen reader on your device, how to activate audio trace, and a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts, by visiting http://calculator.smarterbalanced.org.